Home By Another Road

In our family, vacation days usually mean board games. We have a tradition of getting a few new board games every Christmas. Most games are competitive, like Monopoly. I don’t know about your family, but my kids are ruthlessly competitive Monopoly players. My son usually becomes an all-powerful real estate mogul in the first half-hour or so. In competitive games like these, it’s a zero-sum situation. There is one winner and the rest lose. It’s every man, woman, and child for him or herself. In most games, you’re motivated to capitalize on others’ bad decisions and misfortune. Most sports are the same way. One side wins and the other loses. These games mirror how life works. They help us learn how to win and lose graciously—we hope ;-) But what if there was another way to play?

A new form of board game has come out in the last few years that turns this everything we know about games upside-down. They’re cooperative board games. In these kinds of games, all the players work together to achieve a common objective. If they succeed, they all win. If they fail, they all lose. We have three of these games at our house, and it’s amazing to watch our kids and their friends play. They give each other help, cheer each other on, and, of course, sometimes put some pressure on each other. These games are built on the idea that everyone’s fate is connected. Everyone matters. It’s harder in many ways, and the stakes are higher. But they require a whole different set of rules that suggest there’s another way to get to the finish line, or to that coveted Home square at the end of the board game’s road. The first time my kids played a game like this, they said, “Whoa. That was cool. I like it when all of us are on the same team.” They had their own little epiphany when they realized that the ruthless, every person for themselves, way was not the only way to get “home”.

            In 40 b.c. the Roman senate declared Herod “King of the Jews.” He was named governor of Galilee at the age of 25, and was chief administrator of the entire northern section of the country. He had incredible power and material wealth, but he lived with a constant fear that his status was in jeopardy. His fear made him paranoid. He saw anyone with any popularity or following as a grave threat. This fear led him to execute one of his ten wives, drown his brother-in-law and mother, and take the lives of three of his fourteen children. He believed that, to rule over a kingdom of people, he had to be ruthless, have absolute power, and be willing to eliminate anyone who got in the way of his plans. He saw people as pawns on a chess board in a game he had to win at all costs. He had forgotten that, long ago, the prophet Samuel proclaimed God’s dreams about a different kind of King—“a ruler who is to shepherd my people.” Not a ruthless dictator, but a shepherd.

So when a star stopped over a spot in Bethlehem, far from Rome, far from the seat of power, and shined over a baby born to nobodies from nowhere, Herod was afraid. Why would men from the east risk such a long and dangerous pilgrimage to find a shepherd-king? Why would anyone roam across dangerous and unpredictable territory to find a king born in such questionable circumstances? Why would foreign men pay attention to a prophecy about a king who would risk his own life to go back for even one lost person? It’s easy to understand why Herod didn’t pay much attention to this prophecy. It would have seemed silly and unrealistic. A shepherd-ruler or servant-king makes no sense. That’s not the way the world works. A kingdom that expands can’t be bogged down in worrying about the restoration and well-being of every single person. A kingdom that is respected can’t tolerate outsiders whose culture and ideas challenge it’s power. A kingdom with true authority can’t abide people from outside the kingdom telling them how things should be changed. And yet, a star stopped over the place where the child was, illuminating  just this kind of servant-king. And yet, a star guided men from outside Herod’s kingdom to the place where power was swaddled in vulnerability. And yet, a star stopped over the place where God gave those faithful foreign men new dreams of a different way home; dreams of a new kind of kingdom where the King was the servant of all, and God’s promise was available to anyone who had eyes to see and a heart to follow; This King was interested in expanding the reach of God’s love, not his own territory or power. The rule of life in his kingdom was only that everyone would have their lives restored and know that they mattered. In this kingdom, wisdom comes wrapped in humility. This King will stop at nothing to find anyone who is lost and bring them back into the fold. It’s no wonder that wise men from all over the map followed that star. In a world where walls keep people separated, and laws are manipulated to protect some while forsaking others, this star stopped over the most unfortified place off all to welcome  new way and a new rule. The star stopped over the place where the rules of the game would be changed forever. These wise men hadn’t come sure of what they would find. They were sent by a cruel king under false pretenses to aid his destructive plans. And yet, the star stopped over this new king whose great ambition was to serve, heal, restore, welcome, and bless all people. The star stopped over the birthplace of a “whole new beloved community rising in the East”—a community that would live a new rule of life in which differences are met with curiosity, rather than suspicion; a community where ambition becomes compassion; a community where cruelty is exceeded by kindnesses, and where belief in what is possible overwhelms fear about what is terrible.

            This kind of game-changing rule of life is not naïve or unrealistic, but it is hard. That is why, when we are baptized, we agree to uphold those vows with God’s help. God led faithful people from all lands, cultures, and races to the place where the star stopped, not to give them a cozy, easy place to set up a tent and stay. God led them, and all of us, to the place where the star stopped to show us a game-changing new way of life. What the star illuminated was not a new political philosophy, socio-economic strategy, or a trendy new movement. The star stopped to show us that the every-person-for-themselves way of the world is not the only way. It’s not God’s way. When the magi arrived at the place where the star stopped, and saw Christ, they were overwhelmed with joy because in Christ God proclaimed that we’re all on the same team. We’re all connected. We all matter to each other and to God. This is terrifying news to those who want to divide, conquer, and use people to pursue their own self-aggrandizement. But to the rest of us, it is the epiphany worth going well off the beaten path to find.

Not everyone will want the game changed. The world is full of Herod’s who sit defiantly on their thrones, telling us that it is a zero-sum game; that we have to give up on some people for the good of the many; that we are only as valuable as our wealth, status, and influence. The world is full of Herod’s who want us to believe that competition and ambition are only way to get ourselves to that winning HOME place at the end of the road in this game of life. But the wise ones—the prophets, shepherds, and servants of the world—see a star leading down another way. They follow the light of God that breaks into the world mysteriously and graciously, defying the rules that the world’s kingdoms insist upon. The epiphany this new light offers is not always easy to see, and it’s sometimes even more difficult to share because it asks that we blaze a new path and take another, often longer, way home. But when we live into our baptismal vows and take those challenging, faithful steps toward a rule of life marked by compassion, generosity, service, and welcome, we will hear the whispers of God in our dreams, in our friendships, in our family life, and in our community, reminding us that the place where the star stopped over Bethlehem was not the destination. It was only the beginning of the journey. The true epiphany happens when we allow ourselves to carry the light of that star out into the broken and hurting world, living God’s dream into reality. In God’s reality, we don’t capitalize on others’ bad decisions; we stand by them even when they fail. In God’s reality, we don’t take advantage of another’s misfortune; we invite them to the Christ’s table where they learn that they are beloved of God, regardless of their fortune. Each time we exercise power through humility, lift up the beauty in diversity, and rely on the strength of compassion, we become God’s light, shining right where we are, on whatever path we are on, showing the others that they can go home by another road.